---
id: fs-s3fs
version: "1.1.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: dormant
---

# fs-s3fs — Amazon S3 filesystem for PyFilesystem2

License: permissive · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 259.6K/mo

## What it is and what it does

S3FS wraps Amazon S3 storage in a PyFilesystem interface, so you can treat S3 buckets like local directories. You open an S3FS instance by bucket name or URL, then use standard file operations—open, read, write, copy—exactly as you would with a local filesystem. The package handles the translation to S3 API calls behind the scenes.

It supports both basic file operations and S3-specific features like cache-control headers, ACLs, and public URL generation. You can mirror local directories to S3, download files to disk, or upload files from your filesystem to S3 using the same PyFilesystem copy and mirror tools you'd use for any other filesystem.

Use it for:

- Mirror a local directory tree to S3 with custom cache-control and ACL settings for all uploaded objects.
- Download files from an S3 bucket to local disk using standard filesystem read operations.
- Generate public URLs for files stored in S3 without manually constructing them.
- Treat S3 as a drop-in replacement for local storage in code that already uses PyFilesystem.
- Upload files to S3 with metadata like cache-control headers set per-operation or per-instance.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

S3FS provides a PyFilesystem interface to Amazon S3, letting you read, write, and manage files in S3 buckets using standard filesystem operations.

Yes, if you need PyFilesystem integration with S3 and can accept dormant maintenance. The package is stable and has no known vulnerabilities, but the last release was 2019-08-14—verify compatibility with your current boto3 and PyFilesystem2 versions before relying on it for new projects. Low install friction and permissive licensing make it reasonable for existing codebases already using PyFilesystem.

## Install

pip install fs-s3fs
uv add fs-s3fs
poetry add fs-s3fs

## Installing fs-s3fs

Before you install: Low install friction with no runtime dependencies. Maintenance is dormant—last release was 2019-08-14, though the repository remains active with a recent commit in 2024-07-16.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) means you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install fs-s3fs

from fs_s3fs import S3FS
s3fs = S3FS('mybucket')

# Or via FS URL:
from fs import open_fs
s3fs = open_fs('s3://mybucket')

Requires AWS credentials configured (via environment variables, config file, or IAM role) for S3 access.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package works reliably with modern versions of boto3 and PyFilesystem2, given the last release was in 2019.
- Current compatibility with Python versions beyond 3.7, as classifiers only list up to 3.7.
- Whether upload_args and download_args features remain fully functional with current S3 API.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 259.6K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

s3 filesystem interface, amazon s3 file operations, pyfilesystem s3 adapter, s3 bucket file access, cloud storage filesystem, s3 file upload download, s3 url generation, s3-storage, pyfilesystem-adapter

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/fs-s3fs) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/fs-s3fs/)